Modern Day Prophet

On Sunday morning, our cruise ship docked in Tampa. I was wearing one of my favorite shirts, a shirt that was an adoption fundraiser for another family that says, "Be Brave". As we moved in a long line from ship to card check to passport check to customs check to passport check, an elderly customs official read it aloud and said, “I like that.” I smiled and nodded, kept moving. He took a couple of steps after me and called out, “I especially like it because it has mountains on it. I am a mountain climber.” I politely said, “Ooh, that’s really cool! Mountain climbing would be awesome!” and again, kept moving. There was a mad rush of humanity behind me who had been standing with luggage for 30 minutes, waiting on the doors to be opened and they did not have time for me to chat with the customs official. He reached out and grabbed my upper arm in an urgent sort of way and kind of turned me around to look at him. Then he looked deep into my eyes and said, “When I got to the top of every single mountain, do you know what I saw?” At this point, I realized this mattered, at least to him and me (probably still not to the hundreds of people behind me who were now stopped, waiting for me to continue dragging my million pound suitcase of dirty clothes that I have wrestled through the whole maze), and I came to a complete stop and looked back at him. “What?” I asked, expecting, “Beautiful views” or “Endless skies” or something. He pierced me with his gaze and said, “More mountains.” 

WHAT??? Are you kidding me right now? I stopped this entire line for, not something encouraging, but something PESSIMISTIC??? Come on, dude! I just kind of nodded and smiled and got a new death grip on my bag, shoving it ahead of me to the escalator. In the rush to get our bags to the shuttle, load everyone on the shuttle, hop off at the car and put the luggage rack on the back of the car, strap down all the luggage, argue over who was driving first, cool the car off, and assess how long it would be until we were home, his words kind of drifted out of my mind. 

{Also, ummmm…. MY PHONE WAS BACK ON. The world! Social media! Notifications! Texts! Emails! I had pictures to post and stories to tell!} 

It wasn’t until later when I was taking my turn to drive that his words stopped drifting and settled down in my consciousness like hailstones pelting from the sky. One at a time, sporadically,    

                    drop. 

                                                                          drop. 

                         drop.

It was then that I started to ask God, “What was that about? Did You send him with a negative message to me? Was he not from You at all, but from the enemy? Was it neither of the two, just an old lonely man who wanted to chat with someone? Show me what I am supposed to take from that.”

See, the night before had been an unexpectedly challenging night for me. Kraig had shared something with me in what he thought was just in passing but that had really shaken me up. Without sharing too much detail, I worry a lot about attachment and connection with our kids. It’s a serious fear in adoption, but especially in an adoption where you choose to love kids who are nearly grown. It’s another blog post entirely, but the link to this story here is that Kraig had told me something that made me realize that a connection one of our kids had to someone in the first country is still very present, even over a year after they have been home. And it spooked me. I had been in a real tailspin the night before, worrying about that and other issues that we have and are dealing with. God had given me a reassurance the night before (again, another post), so why on earth would He send this man to basically take that reassurance and throw it aside, instead emphasizing that, “And hey, once you get through this, there will just be something else. And something else. And something else. You’re never going to reach the top of the mountain just to enjoy the view.” What a discouraging word. 

So, in keeping with something I am trying to make more of a discipline in my life, I just asked God, “What am I supposed to take from that?” and sat quietly, waiting to hear an answer. I can’t say the answer was anywhere near as clear as the one I had gotten the previous night about a different situation, but I did feel that He was gently reminding my spirit that our journey in this world WON’T ever be easy, or complete, until we are passed from this world. And, also, that easy isn’t the point.

I think the message the sweet customs man was trying to share with me and the one that the Lord wanted me to take is that it’s not about the mountainous journey, the treacherous pathways, the rocks that tumble in front of us, the beautiful vistas along the way, the storms, the sun, the exhaustion, the peak, OR THE NEXT MOUNTAIN. It’s about being brave enough to carry on. It’s about the strength we find in Him through our weakness. It’s about the fellowship we share with Him when we are in the darkest place and no one could understand or maybe they could but you can’t even tell them anyway. It’s about His sweet whispering under the rock ledges as we wait out a rainstorm. It’s about the joy of creation spread out before us and taking such delight in what He has made while simultaneously knowing that He made us with the same care and delicacy that He made the canyons and the cliffs. It’s about sweating through your clothes as you wrestle an overweight suitcase (and an overweight 40 year old body but that’s another story) up and down ramps and escalators, only to be stopped in your tracks by a modern day prophet dressed in a US Customs uniform.